Reviews

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War -- Dark Crusade

This is hardly an original concept in real-time strategy games. Rise of Nations, for example, did this quite well, and the Total War series is built on it. Neither is the Dark Crusade version particularly innovative. What the single-player campaign has going for it is what the series as a whole has always boasted -- oodles of personality. The storyline is very amusing, the voiceovers are well-done and players will certainly want to play through the campaign a number of times to experience it from each race's perspective. The single-player campaign is also superior to random skirmishes for players who don't want to hit the Net in search of multiplayer to play as and against each of the game's seven races. There are a few issues with the single-player campaign. The challenge level on the tactical map is pretty low. This is partly because the AI is strategically weak and partly because there are no random elements to enhance replayability. It might also have been nice if the strategic map play could have been extended to multiplayer.

Finally, I really have to applaud Relic for Dark Crusade's customer focus. It's a standalone expansion, which means that players don't have to own the original game or Winter Assault to play as any of the seven races in the single-player campaign or in skirmish mode (players who only own Dark Crusade are restricted to the Necron and the Tau in multiplayer). The game doesn't require the CD to be in the drive in order to start up, and players can also use multiple installs off the same CD in LAN games. In a world where players get punished by increasingly draconian install and anti-pirate protection schemes, this is a nice change.

In the end, Dark Crusade is an excellent swan song for Dawn of War. It's not perfect, and it suffers a bit (perhaps unfairly) in comparison to Relic's own Company of Heroes. The new races and game balance changes have revitalized the multiplayer game, and the new campaign gives plenty of gameplay for single-player fans to sink their teeth into. In fact, if the biggest knock against Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War -- Dark Crusade is not an inherent lack of merit, but merely the fact that time has passed it by, then this marks one of the most graceful exits in gaming history. Plus it's got a Grim Reaper beheading an Orkish Squiggoth. Take that, you namby-pambies in Able Company!